I am extremely proud of my father.

He has won a trip to the Beijing Olympics and is going to stay IN THE OLYMPIC VILLAGE for 5 days and has an elusive entry pass that allows him to attend ANY event during the course of his stay.

The cost of this trip can pay at least one third of my education fees and is fully paid for by…….

ADIDAS!!!

Once upon a time, when we were very young, my dad would offer us 1 sen for every strand of white hair we plucked from his head. He was obsessed with having a fully black head then, and we were obsessed with getting coins. (We even sold presents we never used to my mum’s piano students, including a gold ink pen for…20 cents.) It was fun competing with my brother to see who could pluck out more hair. Sometimes my father would declare a strand of silverish hair we had pulled out impure, forfeiting our 1 sen payment. 

Over the years, more and more white hair has sprouted on his head due to age and a heavy workload. So recently, this conversation took place in the car.

Me: Pa, you really have a lot of white hair now, cannot pluck already, otherwise you’ll turn bald.

JN: Ya, now it’s time to move on and pluck your black hair instead.

This, is what baby sisters are for.

My aunt called from Australia this morning, offering yet again to host me if I were to study in Sydney. A calmness descended on me, a quiet gratitude towards my extended family in the land down under — my aunt’s family in Sydney and my other relatives in Melbourne.

In retrospect, I had a beautiful holiday there. But of course, things are never quite the same when you look back. 

I remember being pleasantly surprised by the carpeted floors in my aunt’s house upon arrival, for insulation, I realized later, or else the wooden boards that actually creaked because everything was so silent. I missed the faint whirring of the fan, a noise I had grown to ignore back home.

I remember the countless evenings spent walking to Woolworths to buy milk and bread, and then lounging in front of the television with their whole family, watching mindless cartoons, my aunt drinking her habitual cup of coffee. In fact, it was the first time I ever watched The Simpsons, Family guy, Friends, and the like. I remember learning about lbw and nine other modes of dismissal of a batman in cricket; how long it took for me to understand let alone appreciate the game.

I remember sun-bathing on Manly beach in Tanny’s swimmers, the sting of the cruel sun on my skin. I remember gaping at the force of the waves, knocking me off my feet and dragging me along as they receded, making abrasions on the back of my thighs as they grazed the sand. I have never experienced anything like it along our coastal shores. 

I remember kangaroos and wallabies burrying their snouts into my palm as I fed them, blissful. The animals were endearing, I took to them immediately. The fairy penguins on Phillip island made me feel like giggling because they were so cute, yet a certain awe refrained me from making any noise louder than a whisper while my cousins and I watched them near their burrows. 

I was brought to many other places, but it’s too bad a cloud of weariness hung over me when I was there, killing any desire to venture out and explore on my own. I didn’t do much research, didn’t care if I saw the Harbour bridge or not, and didn’t even bring a camera. (You should have seen people’s expressions when I told them.)  

But at least I got to catch up with people who had become fuzzy images, clear only in yellowed photographs where I was but a toddler. Granduncles and grandaunts, uncles and aunts, and cousins of all ages. I met my dear aunty Christine whom I’d not seen since I was 6, when she came back and stayed with us for a couple of weeks during medical school vacation. She regaled us with so many tales back then, and today she writes me nice supportive emails. 

Tanny’s leaving for Denmark soon. She’s going to be there for half a year. I’m left here wondering how it’s like for them in the winter where it gets dark by four, if they’ve bought their sofa set yet, and if my aunt has tried making the oyster meatballs I cooked for them the last time.

Dear papa,

Thank you for being my playmate when I was a toddler. For taking me around the neighbourhood on your bicycle, for playing with Mr. Caterpillar, Charlie Barlie, Fifi and me, for carrying me in your strong arms whenever I was too tired to walk. 

Thank you for comforting me when I had a terrible nightmare at six. Thank you for attending to my midnight nose-bleeds.

Thank you for fishing me out of the water the time I turned turtle while wearing a float, my head stuck in the water, my legs kicking desperately at thin air.

Thank you for waking me up early one vacation in Penang, bringing me for a walk to see the beauty of a small starfish.

Thank you for playing badminton with us, for teaching us how to cycle and play ball. 

Thank you for driving me to my endless classes. For your comment on my water colour painting after one art class — you said the seahorse could sell for RM35. I was over the moon. I thought I was going to be able to make a living from selling RM35 paintings then.

Perhaps I grew up too fast, or I was too busy, or you were, but somehow I remember nothing of the years in between, except stress, disapproval and strong advice.

But thank you for the constant emails for the past two years. The unwavering belief you had in me, you still do. 

And as of late, the patience and graciousness and space you have given me. Thank you for your ability to appreciate me in my imperfections.

I am incredibly proud of you, your determination and grit, your excellence and wisdom. Your ability to withstand great pressure, your steadiness. Your courage to stand up for the right things, unafraid of challenging the norms. The man I marry must be like you — a sturdy tree.

Happy Father’s Day.

If you have been watching TV lately, you’d have noticed this girl in the Hotlink ringtone advertisement, singing Jay Chou’s song on a stage. I got to shoot her plus 3 other models today! It was quite fun. Awkward, at first, not knowing how to break the ice and communicate with the tall beauties; smiling shyly at them whenever they looked my way, but fun nevertheless. We shot in the garden and by the pool; I was sweating from the sweltering heat, but too immersed in my task to notice. It’s really tough, modelling, I never quite grasped the difficulty of their profession until today. 

p/s: The girl with the camera is NOT me!! And this photo is unedited by Photoshop! Do check out Capture NX though, from what I saw today, it seems like quite a cool AND CHEAP (compared to PS) software.

It is already midnight, but I am still tense from helping my sister finish her project in time. Completing 3 environmental posters in one night requires serious speed for someone unwilling to burn the midnight oil. Haha. I feel a sense of achievement I’ve not felt in a long time. Look at our sick little friend I drew below. I’m kinda fond of her. 

OK the plastic bag I copied from some clipart one lah (I’m very good at copying!), but the earth I produced out of MY imagination (think silvery threads of memory going into Dumbledore’s Pensieve). I’m quite happy with it! I know it’s amateurish but hey, it’s one of the few times I actually produced something from scratch! There is a catchy phrase at the bottom but I won’t show you that coz it was my mum who thought up the phrase. And somehow I always like my own ideas better even if they suck. 

Now what do you think of this?

Entirely my idea OK, not inspired by anybody else. Lol. The photoshop work is slipshod and I changed the font colour to black coz I only have a black and white printer but overall wouldn’t you say it’s not bad?

p/s: This Saturday I’m going for a basic photography course with my papa. Course comes with purchase of new camera. On one hand I am secretly not very interested in photography, but on the other hand my dad says it’s a good skill to pick up. So I told him yes I’m interested in photography and forced myself to sound earnest. Lol. Maybe I will develop the interest but I’m doubtful.

Force myself to sound earnest. Sigh. Seems like I do that for a lot of things.

I, Jasmine Yow, have decided that from this day onwards, I need to start exercising one of the weakest muscles I have right now: my will. It has been much pampered for the past 5 months and has been allowed to degenerate to the point of extreme flabbiness. As a result, even simple tasks seem like mountainous challenges these days.

I was annoyed at my parents for doubting my abilities. After all, EVERYBODY ELSE tells me “I’m sure you’ll do well.” And that’s what I threw in mum’s face. Just let me do what I want while I can! And then it became plain to me: that was everybody else, not my mother. They can never, even if they tried, care as much as a mother would. They were not going to suffer any consequences after all. They did not know me, my habits, my true condition, as well as my mother did. They did not see me sleeping 12-14 hours a day almost every other day. So my parents are annoyingly and scarily right. If I’m going to go back to studying in a month, I need to prepare myself. Discipline myself. Take good care of myself. Because who am I kidding at present I have no motivation or endurance to do anything which requires real effort. 

Gulp.

p/s: The people queueing up to pump petrol yesterday? I wonder if they really saved any money at all given the amount of time their engines were left running in the bumper-to-bumper jam (hence the amount of petrol wasted), not to mention the opportunity cost incurred by forgoing other activities which I’m sure would’ve been more desirable and beneficial than gazing into space waiting for their turns at the petrol kiosks.

p/p/s: AWSURVEY IS A SCAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME. Ish so angry how come I’m so stupid to believe it.

A little something for those of you who are bumming around with nothing better to do yet.

Looks good, no?

The thing is, you can only redeem money after you’ve been paid $75, which is quite a lot. (I’ve been paid $27 in one day). Truthfully I’ve no idea whether this thing really works yet. And I know a lot of these things are scams but I just feel like finding out for myself.

I got rejected by NTU. Not exactly a surprise.

One by one my friends are getting accepted into universities, the way good apples get picked off a tree. You know what I feel like? I feel like the small shriveled apple, hidden behind thick folliage, frowned upon, forgotten.

Finally, I get a taste of my own medicine. Who was the one who once said she wished she could just flop her exams and NOT CARE for once? Back then the consequences seemed far away, surreal. Now they loom overhead like dark clouds.

Anyhow, I am going back to study in a month, because I don’t see how lounging around for another half a year will help me. (Funny how time can distort your perception of things so radically.) But this time, I will be studying on family money. Hard-earned money.

I feel wobbly. I don’t know if I’m up to it. I have to be, but I don’t know if I can be. And the wheels of my mind go round and round, with Philippians 4:13 trailing along behind.

We’ve all pondered over moral dilemmas at one time or another, probably just for the sake of it. There’s a top 10 list here, if you’re interested.

I’ve never really been a fan of all this thinking and debating of hypothetical situations I don’t believe will ever happen to me. I don’t know, alright, whether I’ll save my mother or my husband if both of them are drowning and I can only save one. I don’t know! I’ll probably be immobilized by fear, too shocked to do anything. Or maybe I’ll jump in heroically and end up drowning together. So what’s the point of choosing.

But my world was rocked a little when I flipped through the Chinese papers and read about the rescue efforts in wake of the Sichuan quake. (By the way, The Star had Konsortium issues and some Iskandar Malaysia project I’ve never heard about on it’s front page. Surely the catastrophe in Sichuan deserves more attention?)  Read this Chinese article, if you will. This headmaster actually put the lives of his students above his wife of 20 years. What a difficult and courageous decision to make, to leave his wife in the rubble and rush to pull out the kids from the collapsed school.

There is story after story of the resilience of the human spirit in Nan Yang. I’m emotionally still quite numb these days, but this one, this one left me slightly shaken. I don’t know what to say.